One last time
by Debby Bacellar
Summary: Sometimes a last date, can indeed be the last time. (SS/HP)


One last time

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all characters belong to JK Rowling and various publishers. I do not gain any profit unless the pleasure of writing and give life to my crazy dreams. I have no beta, so all errors are my responsibility. Already, thank you for your presence. I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm doing my best.**

**This one-shot is an adaptation of a short story by Lygia Fagundes.**

**(***)**

_Sometimes a last date,_

_can indeed bethe last time._

**(SS/HP)**

Harry rose unhurriedly the tortuous slope in the confines of Cokeworth suburb. To the extent that his steps were advancing, the houses were thinning. Modest houses scattered without symmetry and marooned in wastelands.

In the street unpaved, covered here and there by a underbrush, some children were playing ring to ring the 'rose. The weak song child was the only sound alive in the afternoon stillness.

Severus waited leaning against a tree. Slender and slim, dressed in his black overcoat, grown and tousled hair, the eternally dour face.

— Hello Harry...

Harry stared at Severus. He was serious. Harry looked at his shoes.

— See that mud. Only you mark a date in a place like this. That idea, Severus. I had to get off the taxi so far from here, the taxi driver refused to enter in this part of that damn neighborhood. He said he would never go into a place like this.

Severus laughed between malicious and naive.

— Never? That's pretty definitive. I thought you come sportingly dress and now you show up here this elegance! Harry Potter dressed in an Armani, who would say. When you were with me, wore old jeans and t-shirt, remember? Not long before you were free from the orphanage, with seventeen old.

— It was to tell me that you made me come here? - Harry asked, keeping the leather gloves in his jacket pocket. The weather was cold, but the sun was still present between the gray sky.

Harry took a cigarette from another pocket, lit it and engulfed slowly. The smoke warming up your lungs quickly.

— I'm waiting for an answer, Severus.

— Oh, Harry... — and Severus took the smaller man gently by the arm. — You are beautiful. And now smoke cigarettes rogue, blue and gold... I swear I just wanted to see you again and enjoy all this beauty, smell her perfume. So? I was wrong?

— You could have chosen another place, no? — Harry softened voice. — And that's it? A cemetery?

Severus turned to old wall ruined. Indicated with the look the iron gate eaten away with rust.

— Abandoned cemetery, angel. Living and dead deserted all. Neither the ghosts left over. Look around like little children play without fear.

Severus added pointing out the children in their play. Harry engulfed slowly. Blew smoke in the face of Severus

— Severus... You have every morbid idea. Now what? What's the plan now?

Severus gently wrapped his right arm around the waist of the younger man.

— I know this place well. My family is buried there. Let's get a moment and will show thee the sunset, more beautiful world.

Harry stared at Severus for a moment. Throwing her head back a loud laughter.

— Watch the sunset... Here Severus!? My God ... Fabulous, fabulous! ... You beg me one last meeting, tormenting me for days, make me come from afar to this horrible place and for what? To see the sunset in a cemetery!

Severus laughed too, a pink blush coloring her pale face.

— Harry, baby, do not do this to me. You know I like to take you to my apartment, but I was even poorer, as if that were possible. I live now in a horrible pension. The owner is a Medusa who lives peering through the keyhole...

— And you think I would?

— Do not be angry. I know you would not. You are a loyal person after all. But I thought that if we could talk for a while on a deserted street...

Severus said getting closer to the shorter man. He stroked her face feeling the beard beginning to grow with the tips of his fingers. Severus became serious. Gradually, numerous wrinkles were formed around their slightly narrowed eyes. The fan-shaped wrinkles deepened a sly expression.

For the life he led, with 42 years old he seemed to have 50. Your bad mood and constant grimaces did not help with the lines of deep expression on his pale face. The man with green eyes was the one who had made Severus smile.

And then, Severus smirked and the network of wrinkles disappeared without a trace.

Suddenly, Severus took an inexperienced and a half inattentive attitude.

— You did well to come.

— You mean we can leave here... and a drink a pub?

— I'm out of money, angel. Please understand.

— But I paid, Severus.

— You will pay with money that son of a... No. No Harry, I prefer drinking ant poison. I chose this tour because it's free and very decent, there can be a more decent ride, do not you agree with me? It is even romantic.

Harry looked around. Gently him pulled away from the taller man.

— It was a huge risk, Severus. He is jealous and he is tired of knowing that I had an affairs. But with you, anything that refers to you take him axis. If he even imagine that we are here together ... I do not want to imagine what him would do to me.

— I remembered this place just because I do not want you to take risks. There is no more discreet place than an abandoned cemetery. Look, it's really quite abandoned.

Severus walked and opened the gate. The old hinges groaned.

— No one will ever know we were here.

— It is a huge risk, has said. Do not insist on these games, please. And if comes a funeral? I can not stand burials.

— What family would bury a loved one here in this place? Is abandoned. Harry, Harry, how many times I have to repeat the same thing ?! For centuries no one is buried here. I do not think the bones left over. Stop nonsense. Come with me. Can you give me your arm, do not be afraid.

The undergrowth dominated everything. And not satisfied to have raged furiously for flowerbeds, climbed by graves, had infiltrated-eagerly through the cracks marbles, invaded the malls full of boulders slimy, as if with a violent force of life cover forever the last vestiges of death.

Severus and Harry were walking down the long avenue bathed in sun, but the cold wind made her flushed skin. The sound echoed both steps as a strange music made the sound of dry leaves on the ground gravel.

Sulking, but obedient, Harry let himself be led like a child. Sometimes showed some curiosity by either grave with the pale enameled medallions portraits.

— This place is immense, huh? And so miserable, I never saw a more miserable cemetery. How depressing.

Harry exclaimed throwing the cigarette butt in the direction of a little angel severed head.

— Come on, Severus, enough of this morbidity.

— There, Harry, looking a bit this afternoon. Depressing why? I do not know where did I read, beauty is neither in the morning light or in cover of night, is in the twilight, this is semitone, this ambiguity. I'm giving you a twilight on a tray and you complain.

— I do not like cemetery already told. And even poorer cemetery.

Severus gently kissed Harry's hand.

— You promised to give a last date to me, your slave.

— Yeah, but I was wrong. It can be very funny to you, but do not want to risk anymore.

— He is so rich?

— Extremely rich. He will take me now in a fabulous trip to the East. Have you heard in the East? Let's go to the East, my dear ...

Severus picked up a boulder and closed it in his hand. The tiny network of wrinkles back to spread around their eyes. The face, so open and smooth, suddenly darkened, aged. But soon the smile reappeared and disappeared wrinkles.

— I also took you one day for boating, remember?

Harry leaned his head on the tallest man in the arm. The smell of sandalwood invaded his nostrils bringing a myriad of memories. Harry slowed his pace.

— You know, Severus, I think you are even a little crazy... But after all, I sometimes miss our time together. It was a memorable year. When I think, do not understand how I supported you for so long, imagine, a whole year.

— You had read many novels that year and stayed that way all fragile, all sentimental. Trying to save me from myself, as you said. Now what? That romance you are reading now?

— None. — Said Harry pursing lips.

Harry stopped to read the inscription of a broken slab: 'my dear wife, eternal longing' - read quietly.

— Well yes. Little lasted this eternity.

He threw the boulder in a parched site.

— But is this neglect in the death that makes this charm. No more is the smallest intervention of the living, the stupid intervention of the living. Look out...

Severus said, pointing to a split grave, weed sprouting strange inside the slot ..

— See... The Moss has covered the name in stone. Above the moss, still will the roots, after the leaves... This is the perfect death. Neither memory, or longing, not even one name to remember. Anything.

Harry snuggled closer to Severus. He yawned.

— You are very poetic today, but now let's go. — Harry tip-shod feet with luxury shoes Dior, gave a quick kiss on the face of Severus.

— Enough of that Severus, I want to leave.

— Just a few steps, my angel...

— This cemetery is never ending. We've walked kilometers.

Harry looked back.

— Never walked so much, Severus. I'll be exhausted.

— The good life left you lazy? That ugly, Harry.

Severus scolded lightly, pushing Harry forward.

— Doubling this mall, is the burial place of my family. That's where you see the sunset. You know, Harry, I walked many times here hand in hand with my cousin. We were twelve. Every Sunday my mother came to bring flowers and arrange our chapel, which was already buried my father. I and my cousin were coming with Mom and we were around holding hands, making so many plans. Now the two are dead.

— Your cousin also passed away?

— Also. She died when he turned twenty. She was beautiful, red hair, red like fire, but she had more beautiful her was his eyes. They were magnificent eyes... They were so green like yours. Much like yours. Extraordinary, Harry, extraordinary as you two... I think now that the beauty of it lived only in the eyes, as electrical, living like an emerald in the sun.

— You loved each other? — Harry asked curiously. He realized that he knew nothing about the past Severus.

— She loved me. She was the only creature who loved me... Anyway, it does not matter.

Severus lit a cigarette and swallowed up, lost in memories.

Harry took the cigarette out of Severus, engulfed it and then gave it back.

— I liked you, Severus.

— And I loved you, Harry. And I love you still. Do you realize the difference now?

A bird flew high and let out a loud hoot like a scream. Harry winced.

— The weather is cooler. Come on now, Severus. I did not bring coat.

— We have arrived, my angel. Here are my dead.

They stopped in front of a small chapel covered high to low by a wild vine that enveloped her in a furious embrace of vines and leaves. The narrow door creaked as Severus opened. The light broke into a cubicle of blackened walls, full of old gutters stretch marks. In the center of the cubicle, an altar half dismantled, covered by a towel that had acquired the color of time.

Two faded opaline vases lined a crude wooden crucifix. Between the arms of the cross, a spider had woven two triangles webs already broken, hanging like tatters of a blanket that someone had put on Christ's shoulders.

On the side wall, right by the door, an iron door gave access to a stone staircase, spiral down to the catacombs.

Harry walked on tiptoe, avoiding even brush lightly anything inside the small chapel.

— What a sad place, Severus. How long have you been here?

Severus touched the face of the image covered with dust. He smiled, melancholy.

— I know you would like to find everything clean, flowers in vases, candles, signs of my dedication, right? But already told that I love most in this cemetery is precisely this abandonment, this loneliness. The bridges with the other world were cut and here the death totally isolated. Absolutely.

Harry stepped forward and peered through the rusted iron bars of the door.

In the basement semidarkness, the large drawers stretched along the four walls that formed a narrow gray rectangle.

— It's down there that are buried his mother and cousin?

— Yup. They are in the drawers, and in the drawers are my roots. Dust my angel, only dust...

Severus murmured. He opened the door and down the stairs. He approached a drawer in the center of the wall, holding firm on brass handle, as if pulling it.

— The dresser stone. Not grandiose?

Pausing at the top of the stairs, Harry leaned over to see better.

— All these drawers are full of corpses?

— Floods? No. Only those with the picture and the description, see? This is the picture of my mother. Here she is sleeping in eternal rest.

Severus continued by touching with his fingertips in an enameled medallion embedded in the center of the drawer. Harry crossed his arms.

Harry said quietly, a slight tremor in his voice.

— Come on, Severus, come on, please.

— You are afraid. - It was not a question, but Harry replied.

— Of course not, I'm cold. Come up here and let's go. I'm hungry too!

Severus did not answer.

He walked over to one of the large drawers on the opposite wall and lit a match. He leaned loosely illuminated medallion.

— My cousin Lily. I even remember the day she took that picture, two weeks before he died... She held her hair with a blue ribbon and came to show off. 'Am I beautiful? I'm pretty?'... — Severus spoke to himself now, sweet and serious.

— She was beautiful, but the eyes... Come and see, Harry, it's amazing how she had eyes like yours.

Harry went down the stairs, wincing for non bumping into anything.

— It's very cold here. And it's so dark, I'm not seeing anything!

Lighting a match, Severus offered it to Harry.

— Take it, you can see very well...

Severus pulled away to the side.

— Note the eyes.

— But it's so faded Severus, barely see it's a girl...

Before the flame goes out, Harry approached the inscription written in stone. Read aloud, slowly.

— Lily Evans, born May 20, 1800 and died ... - Harry dropped the stick and was a property moment.

— But this could not be his childhood sweetheart Severus, she died over a hundred years! You liar!

A metallic thud cut off his word through. Harry looked around. The darkness was thick.

Harry looked back at the stairs, where the only light was coming now. At the top, Severus watched Harry behind the bars closed gate. He wore a smile. Half-innocent. Half-malicious.

— This has never been the tomb of his family, you liar! What a joke more bitch! — Said Harry, quickly climbing the ladder. - It's no fun, you hear?

Severus waited until Harry came almost touching the handle of the iron gate.

Severus turned the key in the lock, pulled it from the lock and jumped back.

— Severus, open it immediately! We will immediately! - Ordered Harry twisting the handle.

— I hate this kind of game, you know that. You're an idiot! What a stupid joke! Open this goddamn fucking gate Severus!

— A glimmer of sun will enter through the crack in the door, Harry... There's a crack in the door. After going away slowly, very slowly. You will see the most beautiful sunset in the world.

Harry shook the gate violently.

— Severus. Enough! I said! Enough! Open this immediately, immediately!

Harry shook the gate even harder. Harry gripped the bars. The fingers so tight that we went white.

Harry gasped, his eyes filled with tears. He essayed a smile.

— Listen, honey, your joke was hilarious, but now I need to go... Come on, open... Please, baby, please...

Severus no longer smiling. Was serious, the diminished eyes. Around the onyx eyes, reappeared the fan-shaped wrinkles.

— Good night, Harry, my angel...

— Enough, Severus! You will pay me! - Shouted Harry reaching out through the bars, trying to grab Severus.

— Asshole! Son of a bitch. Give me the key to this crap, come on! - Harry demanded, looking at the new lock sheet.

Harry then examined the bars covered with a crust of rust. But the lock was new. He felt a paralysis that left him dizzy. Harry was looking up to the key Severus now swung for the hoop, like a pendulum.

Harry stared at him, pressing her face against the iron bars. Harry's green eyes widened in a spasm. His body abruptly lost his strength, and he slipped to the ground.

— No, no...

Severus walked to the exit door of the mausoleum, passing through the second access door. He left wide open.

— Goodnight, my angel. — Severus repeated,

Harry's lips formed a rigid line, as if among them there was glue. Severus's eyes stared at Harry heavily in a brutish expression.

— No... — Harry whispered.

Guarding the key in his pocket, Severus resumed along the way. In the brief silence, the sound of boulders crashed wet under his worn shoes. And suddenly, the shout hideous, inhuman:

— DO NOT! Severus, come back here! Severus get me out! I want out of here!

And again Severus heard the cry of the wounded creature. For a while Severus still heard the screams and howls that multiplied like an animal being shattered. Then the howling became more remote, muffled as if from under the earth.

Once reached the main gate of the cemetery, Severus released the sunset one dull look. He was attentive. No human ear now listen to any call.

Severus lit a cigarette and was down the slope. Children in the distance sang Ring a Ring 'the roses holding hands in a circle.

**Finis**

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